A gas analyzer of this kind, known from DE-AS 1 109 418, comprises a detector arrangement with two single-layer receivers located one behind the other, which are both filled with the measuring gas component, the partial pressure of the measuring gas component being selected so as to be lower in the first single-layer receiver than in the second single-layer receiver. Alternatively, the two single-layer receivers contain different gas fillings, wherein for example for measuring methane in the presence of water vapor the first single-layer receiver is filled with the measuring gas component methane and the second single-layer receiver is filled with ammonia as a replacement for the transverse gas water vapor. The single-layer receivers each comprise an active detector chamber located in the beam path of the gas analyzer and a passive equalizing chamber, outside of the beam path, connected to the detector chamber by a connecting line and which contains a membrane capacitor as the pressure-sensitive sensor. Alternatively a flow-sensitive sensor can be arranged in the connecting line, as is known for example from J. Staab: “Industrielle Gasanalyse” [Industrial Gas Analysis], Oldenbourg, 1994, pages 167f and 172f.
With the detector arrangement known from DE-AS 1 109 418 the signals supplied by the sensors of the two single-layer receivers are fed to an evaluation circuit which is constructed as a compensation circuit and forms the ratio of the two signals. Assuming that the gas filling of the second single-layer receiver is selected such that, in relation to composition and/or pressure, the absorption region of this second single-layer receiver largely overlaps the narrower absorption region of the first single-layer receiver, the sensor signal of the second single-layer receiver, which is based solely on the effect of the radiation not absorbed in the first single-layer receiver, and can therefore be attributed to the component of the broad absorption region, compensates the fraction in the sensor signal of the first single-layer receiver which originates precisely from this overlapping component of the broad absorption region in the first single-layer receiver.